In the two years I’ve worked at Game Over -- and, heck, over my lifetime in general -- I’ve played a lot of computer games. Some were good; some were bad. In some it was clear the developers tried their hardest to create a good game; in others it was clear the developers were simply out to make a buck. But never, ever, have I played a game as awful as Tombstone 1882. I mean, this game defines awful. The next time I look up “awful” in the dictionary, I fully expect to see a picture of a badly rendered cowboy staring back at me. But to cut to the chase, Tombstone 1882 is so bad that I’m not really going to review it. I’m just going to tell you enough about it so you don’t make the mistake of buying it.

The premise of Tombstone 1882 is the only good thing about it. It’s a real-time strategy game based on the Wild West. I can picture such a game working. I mean, cattle drives, posses, bank robberies, and lynch mobs could be fun. But the developer of Tombstone 1882 (whose name I won’t mention, just to save them the embarrassment) didn’t even try. Everything about the game is bare bones, from the five units to the seven buildings to the two resources, and even though you can play as the Clantons or the Earps, both sides are exactly the same and even have the same coloring.

Worse, Tombstone 1882 has an engine less sophisticated than the one used by the original Warcraft. You can’t alias units to hotkeys and you can’t drag-select units, and so it’s difficult to do anything sophisticated with your units (like, oh, attack the enemy); there isn’t a mini-map to help you see what’s going on; and you can’t even save your game during missions! And if that wasn’t enough, the two campaigns that come with the game employ a grand total of -- are you ready? -- one map! Or at least I think so. Let’s just say I didn’t play my way through the entire game.

I guess I should have known. When I contacted Summitsoft about Tombstone 1882, they tried to warn me off. But I figured since it was a game about the Wild West, it might be fun anyway. Oops, my mistake. But don’t let it be yours. Avoid Tombstone 1882 like the plague.